1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to computer systems and methods of translating information into multiple media variations for multiple users who may need to look at the same, similar and/or different information, and more specifically, to computer systems and computer implemented methods of translation of multiple simultaneous web information presences to present information to multiple users who may need to look at the same, similar and/or different information.
2. Background of the Related Art
There is a vast amount of information in the world today that is available by computer. For example, on the World Wide Web alone there are millions of browsers and millions of web pages. In addition to the Internet, companies have set up local xe2x80x9cintranetsxe2x80x9d for storing and accessing data for running their organizations. However, the sheer amount of available information is posing increasingly more difficult challenges to conventional approaches.
A major difficulty to overcome is that information relevant to a purpose of a user is often dispersed across the network at many sites. It is often time-consuming for a user to visit all these sites. One conventional approach is a search engine. A search engine is actually a set of programs accessible at a network site within a network, for example a local area network (LAN) at a company or the Internet and World Wide Web. One program, called a xe2x80x9crobotxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cspider,xe2x80x9d pre-traverses a network in search of documents and builds large index files of keywords found in the documents.
A user of the search engine formulates a query comprising one or more keywords and submits the query to another program of the search engine. In response, the search engine inspects its own index files and displays a list of documents that match the search query, typically as hyperlinks. When a user activates one of the hyperlinks to see the information contained in the document, the user exits the site of the search engine and terminates the search process.
Search engines, however, have their drawbacks. For example, a search engine is oriented to discovering textual information only. In particular, they are not well-suited to indexing information contained in structured databases, e.g. relational databases, voice related information, audio related information, and the like. Moreover, mixing data from incompatible data sources is difficult in conventional search engines.
Another disadvantage with conventional search engines is that irrelevant information is aggregated with relevant information. For example, it is not uncommon for a search engine on the World Wide Web to locate hundreds of thousands of documents in response to a single query. Many of those documents are found because they coincidentally include the same keyword in the search query. Sifting through search results in the thousands, however, is a daunting task.
As another example, a personnel administrator might be interested an employee""s choice of health plan, but an MIS administrator would be more interested in which computer the employee is using. Therefore, the user has to sort out which documents and databases are relevant and which are irrelevant for a particular goal.
Unfortunately, conventional techniques are unable to present information based on, or catered for, the specific user receiving same. In addition, conventional techniques are unable to present different forms of information to the user as retrieved from one or more information sources. For example, existing content customization addresses only individual interest and needs. Further, existing call center technology addresses the same set of information, for example, between the customer and the customer support agent.
We have discovered that different users are unable to examine multiple versions of information depending on the business objectives and required functionality. We have further discovered that multiple versions of information are not based on either user-selectable options or systems-defined privileges.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art for different users to examine multiple versions of information depending on the business objectives and required functionality, and/or personal preferences. There also exists a need in the art for multiple versions of information to be accessible to different users based on either user-selectable options or systems-defined privileges.
To overcome the above-detailed disadvantages and shortcomings of the prior art, it is a feature and advantage of the present invention to provide different users the option of examining multiple versions of information depending on the business objectives and required functionality, and/or personal preferences.
It is another feature and advantage of the present invention to provide the ability of multiple users to access multiple versions of information based on either user-selectable options or systems-defined privileges.
It is another feature and advantage of the present invention to synchronize multiple web pages among customers, customer agents and his/her manager, and billing agents.
The present invention manages relationships among electronic merchants, their customers/buyers and partners (e.g., clearing house, bank institutions) to allow different types of information be presented to different people based on their business functions (e.g., sales, customer support, billing), need to know requirements (e.g., executive, mid-level manager, internal, external), and business operation status (e.g., subscriber, visitor) and personal preferences (e.g., spread sheet, graph).
Some of the additional features of the present invention are:
1. The invention addresses the multiple interests and needs within a group or a community of interest on the Web.
2. The invention deals with multiple versions of the information displayed to the user or customer and the customer support agent.
3. The invention captures and collects for both synchronization of simultaneous web views and translation of information into multiple media variations, the history of operation of the Web Sychronizer/Translator.
4. For both synchronization of simultaneous web views and translation of information into multiple media variations, the actual operation for either the assembly of views or the translation/conversion among multiple media variations can occur either on-line or off-line, at either the information source(s) or web synchronizer/translator.
In the attainment of the same, the present invention provides a method of implementing, generating, and/or displaying, on a display device of a computer system a translation method for multiple simultaneous information presences, web media or media. The present invention also includes a computer system employing the method, a computer readable memory storing the medium, and a method for storing the translation process in a memory.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a computer system displays one or more multiple media variations of information presences with a substantially same view to different users. The computer system includes at least one storage storing one or more of the substantially same view, and at least one user computer transmitting a user request for receiving the view. The computer system also includes at least one server, connectable to the storage and the user""s computer, assigning a user type to each user, initializing the view on at least one information source, establishing for each user at least one media variation, and transmitting to each user the view responsive to a user request and/or privilege, the user type, and the at least one media variation. A method and computer memory product are also provided.
A method and computer memory product are also provided. The computer memory stores, and a computer executes, a program including the above process steps.
A method and computer memory product are also provided. The computer memory stores, and a computer executes, a program including the above process steps.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Further, the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the public generally, and especially the scientists, engineers and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application. The abstract is neither intended to define the invention of the application, which is measured by the claims, nor is it intended to be limiting as to the scope of the invention in any way.
The above objects of the invention, together with other apparent objects of the invention, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the invention, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and the specific objects attained by its uses, reference should be had to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which there is illustrated preferred embodiments of the invention.